Verizon -- EEK

[jpanhalt]

It is a shame a company with such great technology and coverage has such poor customer relations. The only wireless provider in the area of my farm is Verizon. I am thinking of switching both my big city cable and farm copper telephone to Verizon. I hope to get 4G LTE at the farm (expensive amplifier) for Internet, which is impossible with the copper telephone line. It is no problem in Cleveland.

Does anyone have experience, good or bad, with the Verizon Jetpack for Internet? I have heard anecdotal reports of download speeds of 40 Mbps with a good connection. So far, I get about 8 Mbps in Cleveland.

I am most interested in the gottchas, such as the 5 GB/month limit, but reliability and dropped connections is another concern. Has anyone put VoIP (e.g,. Magic Jack) on 4G LTE versus Home Phone Connect (3G) by Verizon?

John

 

[MrAl]

Hi,

I switched services a while back and i went to FIOS from copper.

The FIOS works pretty good, but there is a big gottcha like you mention. That problem is that when the power line goes out (storm, etc.) the FIOS box has to run on a 12v lead acid battery (7.5 AHr). That only gives phone service for something like 2 hours when it is supposed to last for 8 hours (they tell you that it is 8 hours).
The old copper wires would almost always stay active even if there was a main power outage, because the copper wires got their power from the phone company which their power never seemed to go out.

So i surely miss the old copper wires. The ideal set up would be to have both FIOS and copper wires for the phone. So you may want to think twice about giving up your copper wires completely especially if that phone is the only communication you have during a power outage. Of course cell service helps too.

 

[jpanhalt]

I believe my current Cox cable in Cleveland may be mostly fiber optic. At the "farm" where I have the real need for Internet, there is no fiber optic service, and based on my contacts with carriers who service that area, there are no plans to extend fiber optic services to the area.

I will have used my Jetpack in Cleveland for a full day today and will check on the amount of usage that was registered. So far, performance has been almost indistinguishable from Cox cable. Rarely, a page will hang up and I need to reload it. That could also be inherent in my PC or the source, so I am not sure it is due to wireless. I am worried about utilization. Will update.

John

Update: Had device connected 24 hours. Usual browsing. No big downloads, streaming video, or audio. On continuously, even over night. One-day usage: 73 Mb (projected 2.3 Gb/month). Speeds just not quite up to basic cable Internet. A few football games might get expensive.

 

[MrAl]

Hi John,

Oh i see, so that is wireless altogether. That might be more reliable depending on where they broadcast from.

So they limit your bandwidth to some allocation per month? That sounds like what they all do for wireless but maybe some dont now. What do they charge you if you say go over the limit by another 5GB ?

I guess as long as you have backup power you wont have a problem then. That's the main issue here where the box takes quite a bit of current to run at 12v.
Im going to have to look at other possibilities too, like powering my cordless phone which only runs on 6v so it shouldnt be too hard to do.

 

[jpanhalt]

Verizon used to have unlimited usage contracts, but has now gone to limited contracts. The basic plan is $50 for 5 GB/month and each additional GB is $10 currently (plus taxes and anything else that can be loaded on to increase the bill). Although, Verizon says 5 GB is a huge amount, it really isn't. My projection (above) is that I will use about half the amount per month with just one person and no meaningful downloads. Software downloads, teenagers, etc. could wipe out that 5 GB pretty quickly.

Those who had unlimited plans are being grandfathered, but they are being made to pay list price for any new equipment, unless they switch to limited plans. I guess you could say they get you coming and going. Nevertheless, it is the only game in town in many/most of our rural areas. My fear is that once leaves are back on the trees, I may still need to drive into Cleveland to check my e-mail.

My backup power will be a small propane-powered generator as discussed in another thread.

John

 

[MrAl]

Hi again,


5GB is a lot for 'normal' downloading and surfing i guess, but if you download a couple movies that's about it.

I didnt know they went to limited plans now. They used to have unlimited in this area, not sure if they do anymore here either cause i wont pay for it

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

I doubt I can help. I have tried Skype over 3G and it wasn't very good.

I just got a www.clear.com device off of ebay and I was considering that as a back-up pay as you go service. Connections to Clear's website (free) seemed pretty fast. I could do that without signing up. They offer day and hourly passes, but I don't know the cost. They also offer limited and unlimited bandwidth and some home/on the go options. I'm not on the go often, but tit would be nice. I can tether to my phone using PDANET and my cell phone provider. Lost the unlimited.

I'd like to be able to have a WIMAX internet backup, but for now tethering to the cell or using the cell will work in an emergency. I just wouldn't have access to printing.

I have Verizon DSL at 3 Mb/s down/ 760 kb/s up. Usually it's good and pristine. Tonight, not so good, but I've been messing with my wiring. Just hope they weren't messing with theirs. I wonder if I got downgraded. Verizon has been screwing up lately anyway.

i can check easy enough. I can't complain until I go to a minimalist connection.

I am using a splitter rather than filters and who knows, maybe Sandy got my speed accidently lowered. It could possibly be wiring issues. I flunk the large packet ping. Not good.

Do you know that you can get DSL on a line without dial tone. Maybe that's an option.

Now you can also get routers that can fail over or aggregate bandwidth and have 3G backup.